oot communities...compare please

amother

Thu, Dec 26 2013, 2:12 am

amother wrote:

Chicago .... Toronto ... Baltimore ... Boston ... Detroit ... Cleveland ......... Very frum Litvish, Yeshivish family six children in school, husband working but super shtark learner (associates more with kollel crowd)

What are your priorities?

Chicago, Toronto an Boston are all very expensive.

Detroit & Cleveland are cheap.

Baltimore is in the middle.

Boston probably has the smallest yeshivish community of places you mentioned, followed by Cleveland.
Cleveland is very nice and warm. There is the Mosdos which is very yeshivish (but still OOT yeshivish). Its a lovely community and very affordable. So down to earth.

Detroit is interesting because almost the whole frum community is yeshivish. There are 2 yeshivish elementary schools - either bais yaakov/bais yehuday or darchei (more rw). High school for girls is bais yaakov - so you get a mix from the community. All yeshivish but a huge mix from left to very right and some chassidish sprinkled in. For boys its harder.....there is a yeshiva but most send away to all different places WITS/South Bend/Skokie/Ner Yisroel/NY/Telz etc...You also have a lot of OOTers moving to Detroit so if you are a NYer, you won't be alone. The frum community in Detroit is rapidly growing.

Toronto is lovely and lots of options. Just very very expensive.

Baltimore is nice too, lots of options, lots of yeshivish people. Homes are more than detroit or cleveland.

Chicago also obviously has a very large community. Perhaps the largest on the list. There are 3 places to live - West Rogers Park (mostly yeshivish, a big big mix from left to right, some chassidish and everything in between). By telz (though usually if you live here you are affiliated with telz). Or Peterson Park (homes are not cheaper in PP than in WRP - used to be the other way around from what I hear). Peterson Park is mostly kollel type people, but for the most part the younger crowd tends to be in WRP. The yeshivish community sends girls to bais yaakov (kind of a community bais yaakov) and ari crown (left wing yeshivish, more chardal). For boys there is ari crown (again more chardal), YTT (main stream yeshiva) or The veitzner cheder (chassidishe cheder - which for the most part just gets a very yeshivishe crowd). They recently opened a chassidishe cheder and there are also 2 kollels. Tons of shuls. The only problem is housing is very limited and there isn't enough for everyone moving in. Home prices and rents are constantly rising.

I have lived in Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Cleveland, so I can comment first hand on those. I hated chicago - I found people to be very cold and guarded. I seemed like everyone either grew up in Chicago or their spouse grew up in Chicago. Overall I found it to be a very hard city to break into. Its also difficult as a NYer to live there. It just seemed very different than NY, but if you are very very yeshivish you might not care. I found detroit and cleveland to be extremely warm. People were so friendly. Boston, to me feels the most OOT in some ways. The modern orthodox communities in Brookline and Newton are quite large. The yeshivish (and chassidish) community in Brighton always felt quite small to me.

Are restaurants Important? Toronto has a fair share. Chicago (and skokie) has 15-20 (thats a guess, many of which are pizza and fast food type places. there are like 5 pizza places in chicago). Detroit has pizza, dunkin donuts and subs. I don't think there is anything else. Boston has your basic chinese/pizza/shwarma. Cleveland has a little more than boston and a little less then chicago.

I am not sure what else you would like to know. I think you will be able to find people like you in any of these places, boston is just a much smaller community so that may be a bit harder.

Perhaps tell us what you are looking for so we can help?

amother

Thu, Dec 26 2013, 2:15 am

amother wrote:

I am the same amother above. Once correction I wanted to make after reading this. I wouldn't call the yeshivish cleveland community small. It came out wrong. I was more just placing it on the list in order.